FP3 started with similar conditions to yesterday. We’d made quite a few changes overnight but the car still felt a little snappy, particularly at the rear, but throughout the session we improved the balance, both with setup and as the grip levels evolved. There was still a bit too much switching between understeer and oversteer but when we went onto the options it was better so we went into quali feeling quite positive. In Q1 we went for two runs on the options and my quickest lap on the first put us into 16th and with the problems for the Mercedes and the Lotus it looked like we had a chance to fight for Q2. We waited until the last possible moment to go out again at the end of the session and my first lap was good, but on the second flying lap the tyres were gone and I couldn’t get any more out of them. The car has improved quite a bit over the weekend but I still don’t think I could have got any more out of it today.

For me the car was better in FP3 than it was yesterday, altogether more stable, but the balance was still inconsistent, going from a bit of understeer to oversteer in different corners. We tried a couple of changes to try and sort that out and although we did make a small improvement it was still not where I wanted it at the end of FP3. Unfortunately it was the same in qualifying. I just couldn’t find the laptime as the car’s balance kept changing in nearly every corner and I couldn’t push anywhere. It’s pretty frustrating as we know there’s a lot more time in there, but with the way it was handling there wasn’t any more I could do. However, on the long runs yesterday it was much better on high fuel and, as we’ve seen today, quite a few teams are having issues here, so we need to make sure we keep up the same strong reliability tomorrow that we’ve had all weekend and be there if any opportunities come our way in the race.